welcome to dermatillomania support

I am in a very interesting place right now. I feel completely empty and stuck – but for surprising reasons. I was pretty bad about a week ago. I had very little control and I had visible un-hide-able marks on my face and body. It felt really bad, and that ‘bad’ feeling really motivated me to do something to assist and support myself to get better.

‘Bad’ meaning – I didn’t like being around others, facing others at work. I didn’t want to be seen without makeup on, but I don’t like wearing makeup, so once I washed it off for the day I would just stay in my room to not be seen. This creates isolation and some friction in my home as others may become concerned about me and then I tend to react to that because I don’t want to talk about it when I am in it. So I close myself off, and life becomes somewhat unpleasant and it this situation causes me to want to do it more, and then it is a downward spiral. (Check out this video on isolating self within/as feeling undeserving: ‘I Don’t Deserve It’)

But not this time. This time I stepped up and supported myself – through writing, making small commitments, supporting myself through online resources, especially Desteni.org and Eqafe.com. I also started a 21 day commitment to do something OTHER than OCD, where I take one moment a day to do something beneficial for me, and I film it, like a vlog challenge. I have not posted any of the videos because I wanted to make sure it is for me only, not to please others and to not create an accountability to others. I want this challenge to be for me only to create a self-accountability.

My plan is to do another 21 day challenge publicly, but I am walking the point alone first. It is only day 6 and I have been experiencing success. My skin is healed and I have proven to myself as able to commit for longer than I have before. And now I have hit a wall. I have no visible marks, and it’s like, now I have no purpose to move and continue. Isn’t that interesting? I just feel empty and like there is no meaning.

One of the greatest things I was gifting to myself within this challenge has been that I felt I was creating a self-value. Each time I did something beneficial for me instead of OCD, it’s like, I felt this worth growing. But now that I have no visible marks, it is like I have nothing there, no identity, no reason to move me because I’m okay. I’m no longer ‘damaged’ and ‘healing myself’.

I have noticed this before though, it is part of a greater cycle where, whenever I am in this position, I have this experience, and I fall back in to OCD. It’s like self-sabotage, and I actually can feel myself slipping away. I have already short circuited the cycle on the upward part, wherein I come out of OCD and heal, but I have never hit the top and just kept going. This time, I would like it to be different. I would like to short circuit the programming and keep it up instead of falling back.

So, I see what is necessary here is to create something new from here. I need a goal, I need to understand the challenge I will face, and I need a reason. I will give these to myself now:

The goal is to manage OCD; to live in awareness of the triggers and assist and support myself to channel the energetic reactions to something other than OCD. Basically, the goal is to live a ‘normal’ life, where my time is spent on constructive things, where I build, grow and expand myself to be and become something greater than what I had previously thought possible.

The challenge will be pushing myself through the void. The void is the space left where OCD once was. It is the platform of the creation process. ‘Creation’ because it feels like there is nothing there already, there is nothing (or very little) familiar there to hang on to, and no blue print yet.

The motivation is that I will be creating self-worth, self-love, self-acceptance, and a new me that I want to be: all things I have always wanted. Completeness, self-discipline, to be and become the decision-making authority in my life. To live a life of minimal regrets.

So I have to ask myself: do I really want this, or is there still a part of me that wants OCD?

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want, need and desire OCD because it is all I know, it is comfortable, safe and familiar.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not know what to replace OCD with, and to feel instead like a big empty void and not know what to put there.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear that within this not-knowing, OCD will come back and settle back in to that place.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to use my self-trust that I will push this and find what needs to go into that place.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think and believe that without OCD life is cold and hard and unforgiving.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to see, realize and understand that OCD is that which is cold, hard and unforgiving.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to seek the comfort of OCD.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think and believe that life will be so hard all the time and I will live in constant discomfort without OCD.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear not knowing what to do because I can’t picture what life will be like without having OCD to constantly pre-occupy me.

When and as I want to slip back into OCD I stop, and I breathe. I bring myself back to self-commitment by reminding myself that I am more than reason enough to keep pushing, I remind myself that I have self-trust that I will not be hard on myself, and I will not accept and allow my life to be cold and uncompromising, because I have learned to take care of myself with gentleness and assertiveness together to be ale to direct myself through any storm.

I commit myself to support myself to create a self beyond OCD.

I commit myself to push myself to manage OCD even when it feels like I am in a void.